A lawyer for two of the four men sentenced to death for gang rape and murder of a 23-year-old student in Delhi says he was badgered into saying that he would burn his daughter alive if she went out at night with a boyfriend or had premarital sex.

On Sunday, the lawyer said he made the remarks under pressure from an individual, whom he described as an “anti-social element.” That person, Mr. Singh said, asked him what he would do if his daughter was caught having sex outside marriage or out late at night with a boyfriend.

“I was so agitated, upset and stressed after the sentence and this person kept egging me on for a response,” Mr. Singh said in an interview with India Real Time Sunday. “I said I would make her lovingly understand that this is not suited for Indian culture. But this person wasn’t satisfied with my response.”

According to the lawyer, “In the spur of the moment, I said that I would burn my daughter or sister if she indulges in premarital sex despite my many attempts to try and dissuade her.”

“I said so only to get rid of him,” said the lawyer, who represents Vinay Sharma and Akshay Kumar Singh.

The Bar Council of Delhi, the top body governing the legal profession in the capital, announced it would call a meeting this week to review Mr. Singh’s license. “His license can be cancelled on grounds of professional misconduct,” Surya Prakash Khatri, who chairs the council, said in an interview on Sunday. “What he has said is highly objectionable,” Mr. Khatri added.

In the interview on Sunday, Mr. Singh said that while his comments had been taken out of context and manipulated to link them to the December gang rape, he stood by his belief that premarital sex was wrong.

“I never said the woman was engaging in premarital sex or that she had a boyfriend. What happened with her was very, very unfortunate. I was specifically asked what I would do if my own daughter or sister had engaged in premarital sex,” Mr. Singh said. “There was no need to link my remarks to the gang-rape victim. I didn’t refer to her at all,” he added.

“Which father or brother would want women of their house to have premarital sex?” Mr. Singh asked. “There is nothing wrong with what I have said, which is that I will not welcome it. In fact, no Indian household in the right frame of mind would welcome this, that is reality,” Mr. Singh said Sunday.

The four men sentenced Friday, lured the young woman and her male companion, a 29-year-old software engineer, onto a bus in New Delhi in December, before attacking them and raping her. They then dumped them naked and bleeding along a highway. The young woman died of her injuries days later in hospital and the attack prompted a bout of national soul-searching about the treatment of women in India.

Speaking to reporters outside a New Delhi court following the sentencing on Friday, Mr. Singh said, “if my daughter was having premarital sex and moving around at night with her boyfriend, I would have burnt her alive.”

His comments met with widespread criticism.

“AP Singh is living proof of the evils of patriarchy and misogyny,” Bollywood actress, Gul Panag, tweeted from her verified account late Friday. Many others on Twitter chimed in over the weekend and lashed out at the defense lawyer who they described as chauvinistic and shameless. By Sunday afternoon #APSingh was one of the top trending hashtags on Twitter in India.

Women’s rights activists, many of whom appeared on television debates on the issue late Sunday, demanded authorities immediately suspend the lawyer’s license to practice.

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“Whether he referred to the gang-rape victim or not, that is irrelevant. The very fact that he would burn a woman for roaming the streets with her boyfriend reeks of misogyny,” Albeena Shakil, a New Delhi-based women’s activist told India Real Time on Sunday. “It is because of these men that India can never progress,” Ms. Shakil added.

Mr. Singh is the latest public figure to court controversy with comments blaming women’s behavior for attacks by men in India.

Despite attempts to alter attitudes toward women after the gang rape in December, including toughened up laws on sexual crimes, wider political willingness to embrace change has been slow, activists say.

The Indian government, in March, slammed a proposal by women’s groups to lower the age for consensual sex from 18 to 16. Conservative leaders and political parties argued the proposal would encourage premarital sex, largely a taboo in India. Activists and health workers, on the other hand, said there was plenty of anecdotal evidence to suggest premarital sex was on the rise in India, and that laws should be tweaked to accommodate changing social norms.

“It’s not about one lawyer making insensitive remarks,” said Ranjana Kumari, who heads Centre for Social Research, a New Delhi-based nonprofit which focuses on women’s rights. “How do you expect the common man to change when the country’s leaders think the same way?” she asked.

“Change will trickle down only when the political class collectively begins to move out of gender bias and misogyny,” Ms. Kumari added.

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